Alan Turing, a father of computer science and WWII code-breaker was prosecuted by the British government for being gay. Then chemically castrated. Sign this petition if you think this is fucked up and want them to apologize.

Turing committed suicide two years after his prosecution in 1954. He is most well known for his Nazi enigma code breaking work for the British during the second World War and his helping establish a test to measure the intelligence of a machine which is now known as a Turing Test.

We owe him so much for his work during the big war, and for what he's done for us as geeks. He was a hero in every sense of the word. So far more than 5,500 signatures have been collected on the Downing Street petition started by computer scientist John Graham-Cumming. Author Ian McEwan put his John Hancock on the petition. I'd sign up but it looks like you need a UK address. So if you'd like to see Alan Turing get his apology, maybe you can leave a comment here as well. [BBC]